Monday, November 19, 2012

Crystal Castle

 **PLEASE SEE BLIZZARD OF THE CRYSTAL CASTLE FOR BETTER INFORMATION**

Well, looks like the next event has been decided and it will be Crystal Castle. The event is set to run from November 22nd until December 4th. This event was probably popped in because they didn't want to compete with an actual Christmas event they intend on running and didn't want to have a Holy War on the upcoming Holiday weekend. Personally, although I want Holy Wars to get here, I think they made a smart decision.

Chances are it will be followed up by an almost immediate Holy War which will then be followed up almost immediately by a Christmas event.

The event will follow the same structure as Roar of the Dragons and The Puppet Master. This means players will have to progress through quests and random monsters will be generated that players need to defeat. The power of the monsters will increase and there will be rewards based on defeating a certain number of monsters as well as rewards at the end of event for ranking based on damage done to bosses.

Since this event is based on killing bosses, HP is far more valuable than CW. Players will want to participate in every boss that is up because you will receive cards for participating and no matter who summons the boss your damage done goes to personal and order ranking.

Things to note:
1) You have one hour once the boss is summoned to defeat him.
2) Allies summoned will be from both order and fellows. Keep them separate.
3) The more damage a player does to the boss the more rewards they will receive.
4) Event Skill cards are made to do well, use them if you can afford them. *I don't believe there are any for this event other than previously released boss damage cards*
5) Huge amounts of skilled high normals are rewarded during the event, it's a great time to skill up your main cards.
6) Always help kill other peoples bosses if you're invited to, work together and share in rewards. 
7) There is an order rewards based on the number of bosses defeated, better rewards at higher tiers.
8) Individual ranking is calculated by overall damage done to bosses.
9) Order ranking is calculated by overall damage done by all members of your order to bosses.
*Sidenote* If you plan on blowing a ton of HP on this event, be warned that you will probably need to try to liquidate your rewards quickly in order to have HP for Holy Wars. For some extra tips read The Puppet Master Guide all the information pretty much carries over.

34 comments:

  1. I am not excited about this event. This event basically means I will need to check in at least once an hour to maximize the amount of points I'll get. The Skilled HNs will make my deck a lot better (hopefully), but the amount of time required to do well int his event is going to be crazy.

    Off topic, I've noticed you don't often post on the current state of the trade market, but did anyone else find it noticable that you can get mid range cards like Ifrits, or Apsaras at crazy reduced prices lately. You could buy a 60K base deck right now for less than 20 HP. I bought Ifrits for a 6-6 for 62 HP in the last 3 days. That card would have sold for 160+ not two weeks ago. It doesn't seem like your thing, but this has to be killing established players however much it's benefiting me.

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  2. Haha. I don't talk about the trade market because if you don't have anything nice to say.....

    I find the current state of trading is very beneficial for newer players attaining stronger decks, but for players like me it kind of screwed me. Fortunately I am creative in gaining HP.

    This is actually a direct result of mobage putting those ticket limits on trading. Ticket limits prevent players with 4000HP buying all the cheap cards and relisting them at a higher price they know people will pay (thus leveling out the economy instead of having a constant downward spiral).

    You'll notice they've had constant card pack promotions to TRY to encourage players to buy card packs. That's because fewer and fewer players see the value in them. It used to be you buy a card pack and you get a card worth 30HP, now same price on card pack yields a card worth 5HP. Eventually you say "Fuck cardpacks".

    Overall, these drops in price hurt the game because as fewer people buy card packs because they fail to see the value, mobage looks for new ways to make money and eventually it becomes pay to win.

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    1. If that game become a Pay to win, then I will quit it, it's all the simple thing they win, and, others peoples follow my opinions I have no doubt.. But sadly, I hope it is not the case..

      So.. phew..

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    2. Don't worry, it's a long term theory if they let things stay as they are. :P

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    3. Well, a theory is always a Possible thing, then... Yeah.. I'm not quiet about this theory :'(

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  3. I have a question about potential damage boosters for this event. In previous events, like the puppet master, having a card such as Elder Homunculus made you much more efficient at progressing through the ranks.

    So far, it seems there is not a card like that for this event. However, there already exists cards such as Ax Master and Odysseus that provide a Medium Boost to damage against large bosses. Now, assuming no card exists that is tailored to this event's bosses, then these become the best way to boost damage, correct?

    I am nearly ready to make the purchases now while they are dirt cheap (Ax is 3-4hp), but I want a bit more confidence that some card isn't going to appear just as the event starts that is required to rank high in the event.

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    1. Unfortunately I don't have an answer. The boost was soo high from the cards during other events, even if they offer a boost I just don't know if it would be significant enough to justify buying them.

      I kind of wish I had used a couple axe masters during the last event just so I had an estimate on what the medium boost offered but unfortunately I did not.

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    2. I guess it is somewhat still a low risk buy. If I make a 4-4 Ax, I can still turn around and sell it for 15ish hp. Kind of a wash, but of course I am losing opportunities to make hp by wasting time and tickets on Ax Masters...

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    3. Ax masters r still good for a wing card anyway with 17k att and the do some times boost against cards like bahumt

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    4. Elder Hom's Mana Lord ability actually works pretty well here, my basic damage tends to be between 175k and 200k when it activates with a 75k atk deck

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  4. I've thought about the Rage Market quite a bit, and I think you're on the right track with the tickets, because its no longer a "free" market. I'll explain because as it stands now the economics are more technical in nature than is typical. To begin it's necessary to define a true free market:

    A free market exists when there is a resource of a set availability. That availability is set by a few things, but in this game it is set by 2 things. First the real number of cards in the game at any given time, and second the number of cards that people are willing to sell. There are some cards that once people have them they are not for sale for any price. An example of that would be something like the Statue of Liberty in New York. It doesn't really matter what someone will pay for it, it's staying where it is and thus isn't for sale. So there is a set of cards that 1 exist and 2 are for sale so to speak. The other side of that is the resources that are required for the purpose of trading (currency). In this game the currency is most commonly HP. The value of any card is then set by the price a player is willing to pay for that card in HP. The more desirable the card and the fewer of them there are the more HP someone should be willing to pay to have it. The value can also be affected by inflation (number of HP available in the game also sets the value of HP to cards. This represents a free market.

    In Rage of Bahamut what exists is called a restricted free market. It is restricted in three primary ways. First the supply of desirable cards is regulated to 1 or possibly 2 such cards per day per user. Since the majority of these desirable cards are concentrated among the pool of players near the top, the # of cards available at any given time is dramatically driven down. Secondly the Demand for those cards is restricted by the number of cards that can be purchased on the market at any given time to 1 or 2 per user per day. Thirdly the consumerism of the market is gone because I cannot trade a card to you, I can only generally trade it to the community.

    As a result of these restrictions the market might have stayed the same, gone up or gone down. Thinking from the perspective of a game developer several things where likely taken into account.I think the reason they developed the system they have was in an effort to cut down on hackers getting into someones account and quickly transferring all of their resources away. Another reason might have been the uncontrollable volume of trades taking place on their servers. From a bandwidth standpoint it makes sense to regulate trading volume. Thirdly I think it moves the community towards a greater dependance on the the game developers. You have to go through them now. It's very difficult to sell cards on ebay of gamefaqs or ragetrades or anywhere else. You have to go through the developers. Another reason might have been a subtle shift towards charging real money for people to make trades in the game. I doubt this will happen anytime soon, but all the pieces are in place so that this would be any easy transition for them. So from all of these standpoints it makes total sense to the game developers.

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  5. Unfortunately it makes people unhappy. I'm pretty confident that anything that happens with a game of this monetary value (hundreds of millions of dollars) goes through test quorums to determine the likability and sustainability of this plan. This was not whimsical, this was calculated and well thought out. Here's the reason its a success and why all the people complaining that its killing the game are dead wrong and just silly. If you make 10,000 or say 50,000 people mad who have been playing the game all along and hate that they're losing value on their cards etc. and say they all quit. THEY DON'T EFFIN CARE BECAUSE THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS MORE TO FILL THEIR PLACE.

    Is it really surprising to anyone that the developers have made it easier for new players to reach mid level decks? For the record I don't think it's any easier to reach a top tier deck than it ever was. If anything it's harder because as you have repeatedly chronicled it harder than ever to generate HP quickly and the big guy cards are still big HP.

    I've read a lot of forums saying that the developers of this game have no idea what they are doing. Those people are wrong. The people running this are brilliant. They are making millions. All you have to do is follow the money and it will tell you. A safe old saying-People will lie about money, but money will never lie about anything.

    For the record I'm not saying I love the system or that I even like it, just that it makes sense to me and ultimately I understand it.

    Sorry for the length and technical nature of all this.

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    1. I understand why it is brilliant but there is a flaw. There is an old saying, you don't bite the hand that feeds you. The changes to trading and the constant drop in prices of cards directly impacts people who spend money on the game more so than players who don't.

      They may gain hundreds of thousands of players but if they lose 10,000 paying players and pick up a 5,000 paying players (5% of 100,000), they are losing. That's if they pick up 100k for every 10k they lose.

      I have no issue with them pissing off players, as long as they are pissing off the players who don't pay to play (like me). But when players who used to spend $20 a week now don't see the value in it, its a losing formula.

      I really like your point about bandwidth though, I never really thought about that as part of their decision to limit trading.

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    2. Even with your long argument, I still feel that this plan was not as well thought out as it could have been.

      They should have simply set a flat 1 ticket usage per transaction and hand out 3 tickets rather than higher rarities costing more tickets. By doing this the bazaar ticket bonuses from card packs would provide more marginal utility to users and would actually provide a larger incentive to buy card packs.

      By implementing this system they would allow the higher level veterans easier access to get cards for their trade bracket.

      They could then release bazaar tickets as cash items in the mobage store for something near lets say 3 tickets for 100 moba points, 10 for 300, etc, and make a killing abusing the fact that people have to rely on the bazaar for trades.

      This would allow veterans more transactions, not effect the lower levels, and increase profits to the company while still addressing most of the points you make in your argument.

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    3. I agree, each card being 1 ticket would be less annoying Azn.

      I am firmly against releasing bazaar tickets as cash items but I had predicted that happening eventually in my post when bazaar first released as well.

      I honestly believe they should release a skill booster card pack. You have a chance to get a card that increases skill up chance by 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100%.

      It would be a solid way to get people buying card packs because people HATE skilling up cards and with the limitations on trade would really help address the problem of purchasing skilled feeders for skill up.

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    4. Entirely agree with you!

      So, just for make the thing short:

      1) 5 tickets per day is not fair! (HR cost 2, SSR.. 5), so, they could at least increase to 10.
      2) The idea of a Counter-Offer (then Time limited Offer if I understand correctly no?), is a great idea! They must do that! (The original idea came from the poster below, which removed his message..) So.. It's the possibility to SET a counter for the Sale, then if the counter is to zero, the sale is canceled. I know the sale is auto-canceled after 2 days. but, imagine set a sale in time limited "1 hour", some can buy it (Flash Sale!)
      3) A skill card pack (as asked by Lucarda) is a very very very great and welcome idea!!! for 100 MobaCoins, 1 pack of a 20% skill percent would be great.
      4) Back to the "Server Network".. hmm, their network need serious improvements, the Network Error appear often... Too often.
      5) For Pay 2 Win : I hate that formula, I'm as you Lucarda, but me.. If the game become in that way, I simply quit it, and leg all my 50% stuff to my better fellow before, the last 50% to a friend (irl). I accept to pay for some Card Packs (even for illustrations), but certainly not for WIN !
      6) Bazaar idea is a good thing, we don't waste time to find trading offer, but... I don't understand why we can't trade with fellow/Order member after at least 2 weeks, (TWO WEEKS guys! It's ... amazingly a long time !!)
      7) In Bazaar they must also list per Release Year, or Event/Treasure/Quest Treasure... category (in this case, we can better skip those Junk useless cards, or really see the Release Year for collection purpose !!), with the possibility to choose a realm, power, and rarity (this is already the case for theses 3 things), and, why not let the user TO WRITE the "card name" which he want search from ?... Need a serious improve, and don't answer me "It's because it's a game on a PHONE... or TABLET..." .. it's not enough a good reason!
      8) As the below author, (the same who removed his message) said, the many forms are... just a pain when enhanced to find out (note of me: without see wiki) the good deal or bad deal in Bazaar (note of me: since it is not wrotten anywhere!)
      9) Thanks for reading !

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. Anybody else been logging on to a random account. Two or three of my orders logged onto their account but when they entered their password they logged on to an account that wasn't theirs. Now emergency maintenance is up and I'm worried that accounts may have been hacked. Anybody know whats going on?

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    1. Haha, yeah twice. That's why I think server is down now.

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    2. Not because of hacking as what most people think? Some even said that it allows password collecting

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    3. Hm. I would be shocked about that. There is little reason to collect peoples passwords at the moment. Your android won't get virus' unless you download applications that contain them is my understanding of the platform.

      Therefor they'd have to get the passwords on the server end, in which case there is no reason to get you to type them in since they could just snag them from the database to begin with.

      I just don't see 1) Why they'd hack accounts with limited trading. 2) Why they would go through the trouble of creating that weird 'log into another account' bug when ideally they'd want to go unnoticed.

      In the end I think it is far more likely that somebody mobage side screwed something up badly while trying to purge accounts as part of their scan and ban they are running. After all, pretty much all the accounts that people were 'accidentally' logged into were levels 10-11 with virtually zero cards.

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  8. hey, didnt participate in the puppet event so not really sure how this event works. u say that hp will be be useful than cw....but dont we need stamina to constantly fight bosses? and how much stamina is considered enuf? 150?

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    1. You quest through, a boss will be randomly summoned. Your attack points/attack deck are used against the boss. Your ranking in the event is based on damage done, not quests complete.

      150 stamina should be more than enough because you also get to help order members/fellows on attacking the bosses for points. If you contribute on a boss that is defeated you get cards based on the amount of damage you do.

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  9. How much do you see what you post on here about good buys on Bazaar affecting the market? I mean you get what 10K hit per day on this site? Just a question?

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    1. Not so much. Most people realize that although it sucks for some and is good for others, it's not going to change.

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  10. I don't mean changing the system. I'm talking about posting something like hey you can get a Clay Maiden for 50HP right now which is a great buy.

    Then everyone goes and tries to buy that card.

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    1. Hm. I get about 5000 views a day, which I think in the long run wouldn't be enough to influence the market.

      I do sometimes note when things are good prices or what I consider stupidly low prices, but generally its in comments since they are more up to date.

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  11. Lucarda, I see you are giving up LoC and playing Marvel. What is your referral code for that game? If you could, just message me on your alt in RoB, we are fellows. Thanks!

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    1. q w y 7 0 1 6 7 9 is my referral code for Marvel. Name is still Lucarda there.

      Major downside of the game atm is that they are only giving out personal power packs (HP/CW). Also, there is no bazaar but still has the two week trading rules.

      But it's still early in the game.

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  12. Lucarda have any suggestions for an attack deck for Gods? Any specific references? I am assuming there will be a new card with a skill since a new card pack will come out soon with the event.. I really want to do well in this event since I really like the SSR card for Gods! And I need more HP haha.. Should I go with a deck with decent strength and lower attack power (so I can attack more often)or one with bigger strength but more attack power consumed? I have a few unevoled Elders from Puppet master, what I did then was not evolve them so I would have 3 Elders with 3x chance to increase attack rather then 1 stronger Elder with only 1x chance to increase stregth.. Really want to get that Crystal Dragon

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    1. I always go with the largest attack I can get since you still get credit for the damage even if you overkill.

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  13. just wondering.....why would we invite ppl to help fight the bosses?
    isnt it better to take down the bosses alone to earn more shards and get the MVP and Vanquisher bonus?

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    1. In theory. But you get the bonus for discovering it and the bonus for vanquisher. I get the impression that you're not actually losing a lot of crystals by getting help, and killing one faster allows you to grab a new one faster.

      Remember, each one taken down gets you blue, pink, and white shards that have a chance of earning you additional shards as well.

      I normally say, if I can down it myself, I down it. If I'd have to use HP to down it, invite.

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